Randallstown recovers to beat Woodlawn, 28-22

With his team trailing archrival Woodlawn 22-8 early in the fourth quarter last night, Randallstown quarterback T.J. Williamson thought the worst.

"Personally, I felt it was over," said the senior.

For the Rams, however, it had only begun.

Williamson rushed for 156 yards and two touchdowns, and passed for another as Randallstown rallied to score 20 points in the fourth quarter and pull out a 28-22 victory in a Baltimore County 3A-4A League game at Catonsville Community College.

The victory all but assured the Rams (5-2 overall, 5-0 in the league) a league title, and helped their drive to make the Class 3A playoffs. They started the day in third place in the Class 3A North region.

The Rams began their comeback after Woodlawn's errant snap on a punt attempt when Williamson scored from 1 yard with 8:54 left to make it 22-14.

The Rams cut the deficit to two with 6:08 left when Williamson rolled out to his right, faked a pitch to Angelo Todd and took off 46 yards down the right sideline for a touchdown.

Williamson capped off his heroics with less than two minutes left, hitting Todd on a screen and watching as the fleet running back dodged two tackles, cut across the field and raced 48 yards for the winning touchdown.

"We just dug down deep and gave it all we had," said Williamson, who said the game-winning score came on a play that hadn't worked all night. "We tried it once before and it didn't work. Angelo just made it happen."

Said Todd, who gained 113 yards rushing and receiving: "I had two battles to win tonight. I had Woodlawn and I had my injury [a sprained left ankle], and I was able to win them both."

L For Woodlawn (4-3, 3-2), however, the loss was a heavy blow.

Coach Brian Scriven said his team's late defensive breakdown cost them the game.

"We were trying to get the kids to stay in the game," said Scriven. "It wasn't over and we knew it. We didn't let down until that last drive, but it cost us.

"Our defense has always been strong, but today they decided to let down at the wrong time."

Randallstown scored first near the end of the first quarter, when on third-and-one, Williamson took the ball on a sneak up the middle and burst through the line for a 59-yard touchdown with seven seconds left in the quarter.

His pass to Kemo Arrington on the conversion attempt gave the Rams an 8-0 lead.

Just one play later, however, Woodlawn struck back.

After Keion Carpenter ran back the kickoff 37 yards to put the ball in Randallstown territory, he hit Carlton Wheeler with a high-arcing pass down the right sideline, and the receiver took it the rest of the way for a 42-yard touchdown to make it 8-6 just seven seconds into the second quarter.

Woodlawn's bid to tie the game came up short when Carpenter's conversion pass fell incomplete.